Ulrike Ottinger
Die Berlin-Trilogie: Freak Orlando

Ulrike Ottinger is considered one of the most important avant-garde contemporary filmmakers of her generation, having gained particular recognition for her cinematic work. Born in Konstanz in 1942, Ottinger can now look back on more than six decades of artistic work, which has not only taken her to many different places, but has also led her from the visual arts to filmmaking. In the process, she developed a non-linear, surreal, and sometimes bizarre film style.

Ottinger’s Berlin Trilogy was created between the late 1970s and early 1980s and will be shown on three consecutive evenings during this year’s Galerientage in Graz, also known as aktuelle kunst in graz. The trilogy comprises the films Bildnis einer Trinkerin (Ticket of No Return) (1979), Freak Orlando (1981), and Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press) (1984), featuring performances across the three films from Tabea Blumenstein, Delphine Seyrig, Magdalena Montezuma, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Eddie Constantine, Nina Hagen, Orpha Termin, and Kurt Raab, with music by composer Peer Raben.

25.4.2026, 7 pm: Freak Orlando, 1981 (126 Min.)

In Freak Orlando, Ottinger uses five episodes to present a world chronicle incorporating error, incompetence, lust for power, madness, fear, everyday life, and cruelty, depicted through the lives of freaks and outcasts. The central figure is Orlando, who appears in many different guises and times: as an attraction in a department store, as a wondrous figure from the Middle Ages, as a victim of religious fanaticism and the Inquisition, as an artist in a sideshow, and finally as an entertainer at fairs and festivals. Depicted in five scenes, in this journey, Orlando passes through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and the present day like a brightly lit theater, experiencing exploitation, persecution, love, betrayal, violence, and death, encountering religious zeal, colonial deportation, and society’s thirst for sensation. With Magdalena Montezuma in the lead role, Ottinger paints an ironic picture of a world in which those who deviate are marveled at, persecuted, and sacrificed, and history turns out to be an endless succession of cruelty and spectacle.

25.4.2026, 7 pm: Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press), 1984 (150 Min.)